Now, to most people, getting a bloody feather in your email inbox would seem to be the digital equivalent of having a bloody horse’s head left in your bed. But in El Rellok’s world it is a rational and reasonable way to express “outrage” at feminist evil, and anyone who might possibly think otherwise is by definition unreasonable.

Let’s let him explain, because I certainly can’t explain how sending pictures of bloody feathers to someone you hate could be construed as anything but threatening:

The idea that men are violent, rather then the primary victims of violence, is being used to discredit men’s issues.

Well, actually, what’s being used to discredit the so-called Men’s Rights Movement is the simple fact that its members don’t seem to know how to engage in any kind of “activism” besides harassing individual women.

It is glaringly obvious that we need a method of clearly expressing unbounded outrage that cannot be construed as a threat by any reasonable person.

I don’t know that expressing “unbounded outrage” is really the most important goal for any activist movement, but the part about saying things that aren’t threatening sounds good to me.

Gentlemen (and ladies) i propose The Red Feather Campaign.

To paraphrase Groucho Marx, why a feather?

None here should be unfamiliar with the “white feather girls”.[1] , one of the most craven and deplorable pro war campaigns in human history.

In case you aren’t completely up-to-date with all Men;s Rights hobbyhorses, he’s referring to the Order of the White Feather. Founded in Britain at the start of World War I, this was a group of women that hoped to shame men into enlisting by presenting them with white feathers, a symbol of cowardice.

Though the White Feather campaign happened literally a hundred years ago, at a time when the general public in Britain and elsewhere was rabidly pro-war, and thought it hardly won universal support from the suffragettes of the day, MRAs like El Rellok have turned it into a symbol of the intrinsic evil that lurks in the hearts of feminists today.

The white feather campaign was about mens obligation to sacrifice to women, a socially imposed gender role. Feminists, while declaring their total reprobation for all gendered roles, continue to demand that men sacrifice for women by ceding anything described as privilege, regardless of whether the “Privilege” is earned, a “Privilege” at all, or whether a society without the thing described as a “Privilege” can be understood as just ….

Sorry, I nodded off in the middle of that. He finally gets to the point:

SO, I propose we return to them their feathers covered in the blood of the men mercilessly and ruinously sacrificed to their agenda.

Well, he doesn’t mean this literally – he means PICTURES of feathers that look like they’re covered in blood – but we’ll get to that in a minute.

We make this present with the following message.

“This blood is not your blood. To think it is, is a refraction only of your narcissism. This is the blood of men, sacrificed to females, by females, for generation upon generation. When you speak of sacrifice, before our eyes flash visions of bayonets, within our nostrils the waft of trenches, our ears recall the scream of artillery coming to shred our bodies. That is what sacrifice means to men; agony, suffering, death. This feather is a reminder of your inhumanity towards men, your lack of compassion and understanding, and your hypocrisy in declaring gender roles obsolete while commanding men to fulfill the most destructive of all gender roles, the gender who gets sacrificed.”

I dunno about you, but this is creepy as fuck. And more than a little threatening.

Why this tactic? First, the consistent theme seen presented by SJW/feminists is that men are “Violent oppressors who refuse to compromise.” This meme makes clear that it is not us being oppressive, and that the compromise being asked is not just.

Yeah, sending women pictures of bloody feathers accompanied by an over-the-top mini-manifesto charging them with narcissism and cruelty and blaming them for all the death and misery of war (and who knows what else) is definitely going to convince the world that you’re not violent creeps.

By turning the oppression meme around upon the feminists, it creates equal footing in the debate space.

Yes, that’s right, he thinks the way to win the debate is to quite literally argue “nuh-uh, you are!”

Second, it supplants the current “MRA send death threats” meme. MRA’s do not send death threats, MRA’s send pictures of blood covered feathers.

I’m sorry, what?

MRA’s do not send death threats, MRA’s send pictures of blood covered feathers.

That’s what I thought you said. You people really don’t understand how PR works, do you?

If your message does not include said feather, that was not an MRA, as anyone who understands the MRA position would understand the symbolism and necessity of the red feather campaign.

Yes, that’s right, a woman getting El Rellok’s unhinged message along with a picture of a feather drenched in blood is going to say, ah, yes, this isn’t a threat. This is a Men’s Rights meme, and a perfectly rational conversation-starter on the important topic of why women deserve blame for all the wars in the world because a small number of women in Britain in World War I handed out feathers to men who weren’t enlisted.

Third, it allows us to fracture the feminist movement and more clearly identify those feminists who actually want equality and are just being blind, from those feminists who are actually misanderist (i use that term hesitantly, but as i have not had time to create a new term to describe my view of this branch of feminism, so it is necessary). If we can separate the equality feminists from the misandarists, then we can actually start working with reasonable people to begin wide scale social reform on gender issues.

Trust me, any woman who sees your message as anything but the unhinged rantings of a possibly dangerous crackpot is not any kind of feminist.

Depending upon the response I get here, the above shall be sent to AVFM with a proposal for a “Feather Drive” asking submissions of drawings of bloody feathers we can then use.

This, El Rellok’s concluding sentence, is also the first sentence of his that makes any kind of sense. This sounds right up A Voice for Men’s alley.

In a followup comment, directed at MRAs who weren’t completely convinced that sending pics of bloody feathers is the best way forward for the troubled Men’s Rights Movement, he added:

OK, There are multiple people Doxxing and sending threats to feminists (and others). We need a way to signify that this IS NOT US. We need a way to signify this IS NOT US while still sending a reply of some form. Sending death threats is not useful, and no, sending a picture of a feather with a message clearly stating it is about mens sacrafice is a threat only to people who would percieve any responce at all to be a threat. So unless you are saying we just need to grovel before our new feminist over lords, tell me what the hell else we do. DO you understand the concept that feminism is not simply going to go away if you ignore them? We need a symbol representing male disposability, to counter arguements that we are privilege defending mysoginists. And it needs to be a historically poinant one, or its not going to stick.

Why not just send a red feather? You could get a pack of a hundred at any crafts store. Why does the feather have to be soaked in actual blood (or drawn that way, anyway)?

My second thought is, when will the PR manager actually do any PR managing? You’d think it’d be wise to run a campaign like this by someone first to make sure you aren’t recreating the scene from South Park and the lower-case T.

As Cassandra points out, most people receiving a red feather would be puzzled, more than scared. I think it’s hilarious, do they really think that their “memes” matter?
The “problem” (and I mean THEIR problem) is that if they are not violent and rabid, they are laughable, because they have no issues to push, no political or social agenda to support. Without harassment, violence and abuse they are NOTHING. A bunch of babies crying because they share the same genitals of some poor people who died in a war 100 years ago, and they’re deluded enough to think that it’s all the evil females’ fault.
Once they realize this, they will become even more rabid and violent, I’m afraid.

So one guy gets to decide that all of feminism is responsible for a shitty shaming campaign that happened last century?

Does this work the other way? Can one guy absolve feminism of the blame? ‘Cause I just talked to Mr. FM on Skype, and he says everything is fine.* He’s even a combat veteran. If this thing gets underway, maybe we can reply to the red feather emails with a “No, big misunderstanding, we’re cool.”

*If anyone is concerned about nepotism, he also said we could put my case up for independent review while he cleared everybody else.

If they do include an explanation on the meaning of the red feather in their message, it’s at best going to elicit a facepalm and a “not this bullshit again”. MRAs really don’t seem to understand that nobody outside their little circlejerk is going to be dazzled by their rhetoric.

It’s like their desperate attempts to create “gender equivalent” versions of Don’t Be That Guy. When they for once try to avoid blatant victim-blaming, they just sound bizarre and nonsensical to any normal person unfamiliar with MRA arguments*.

*Note to any MRAs reading: The same cannot be said for feminist arguments, which, as opposed to MRA talking points, do make sense in the real world without having to rely on a series of logical leaps and a bunch of non sequiturs.

Oh yes, MRA’s remind feminists of the terrible war sacrifices made by men. But don’t bother to push for policy changes that might keep military men out of armed conflicts. And certainly don’t push for better medical care and other services for veterans. Because throwing their sacrifice in the face of of feminists is sufficient “caring” about them enough, I’m sure.

Please, no ableism. MRAs are illogical shitheads because they are hateful bigots who twist facts in order to justify their desire to control and abuse women, not because they have a mental illness. Thank you.

I think during the first world war some of my family were miners, so were forced to stay behind and keep working. Is mining more misanderous than soldiering? Also in the second world war both my grandads were in the navy. Why do these mighty keyboard warriors never complain about that?
Can someone please remind me how many of the major players (leaders, generals etc) were female? We all know Duchess Francine Ferdinand was murdered by an unknown woman, but other than that…

My country was on the bad side on both world wars, and I only know my mom’s side of the family, but:

WWI – One of my great granddads was a shepherd (and according to family legends had the tendency to be chased away by angry mobs) the other miner, both with over 10 children, so probably not one of them was in the army, but in Hungary even being civilian wasn’t easy those days.

WWII – My maternal grandfather was a miner too, so he was only called in to fight as the last resort (and almost deserted, but was to concerned about his family to actually do it). He never reached the front lines, the Russians intercepted the train and poor guy was sent straight to Siberia for three years.

No, no, and no. He did not just claim that men, all men, as a fact of being men, have flashbacks to the trenches of WWI. Right? I didn’t actually wake up and this whole post is the result of a cat sleeping next to me? It’s all just some strange dream resulting for rolling over into something furry?

…Nivi just lumbered by the front of zir tank, so apparently nope, he really did say that cuz yep, I really am awake. The fucking fuck?

—

In other news, my 55g FINALLY has an established ammonia cycle. And I have zero faith in fishless cycling, despite all logic saying it should work. I should get up and make sure Nivi did end up swallowing zir fish dinner, it being frozen was no problem, but last I saw ze still had a tiny bit of tail sticking out. And with their lack of real teeth, either it went down whole, or it’s fouling the water.

I think during the first world war some of my family were miners, so were forced to stay behind and keep working. Is mining more misanderous than soldiering? Also in the second world war both my grandads were in the navy. Why do these mighty keyboard warriors never complain about that?

Ain’t that the truth! Mining and the navy at wartime both seem like no joke.

And if I remember correctly some British men were conscripted to be miners in WWII, weren’t they? And those men weren’t released from their posts until years after combat ended. I’m not sure if that kind of service was required in the U.S. You don’t hear much about those men from any quarter.

Conscientious objectors from the World Wars are overlooked, too. You’d think MRA’s would love them some stories about men who refused to fight for those manipulative unappreciative feeemales. Especially since a lot of conscientious objectors had their own horrible wartime experiences to relate.

I think the OP’s screed is the closest I’ve seen to anything acknowledging the men who didn’t go to the front… and he’s not really praising them or their principles, just using them as a springboard so that he can splash into some gory battle imagery. Hm.

Sweet baby buddha! I am so screamingly, achingly tired of these ass hats attempting to appropriate the deaths of others as somehow entitling them fucking anything. Unless you are a soldier who has or is serving in a battlefield capacity the sacrifice of those soldiers buys you exactly jack shit when it comes to credibility.

Why does every image these clowns use have to be drenched in blood and using the pain of someone else? I should stop before this just degenerates into me mindlessly cursing.

This blood is not your blood. To think it is, is a refraction only of your narcissism.

Why would I think it was my blood? Oh right; getting unsolicited pictures of bloody objects is massively threatening. Yeah, that’s why people would naturally assume its meant to signify their own blood. Narcissism has very little to do with it.

So, say you’re a member of a social or protest movement. You wish to communicate with persons standing against your cause. You are freely permitted to do this, but unfortunately, many persons who are not formally part of your movement are communicating with the same persons on the same matters. To avoid confusion of your peaceful organisation with these violent fringe elements, you require an unambiguous statement of the source of your communications.

SIGN YOUR NAME. SIGN YOUR NAME AND THE MOVEMENT YOU COME FROM.

If anonymity is necessary, you should still NAME YOUR MOVEMENT.

This misanderist advice brought to you by duckbunny, a member of the Campaign for Common Sense and the Plain Language Oppressers. Please note that these are grassroots movements and I cannot speak on their behalf.

Hey, somewhat slightly OT, but couldn’t help it thinking of bloody bird feathers, but has anybody read Daphne du Maurier’s short story “The Birds”? Yes, it’s the basis for the Hitchcock film, but substantially different and actually much more ghastly and hopeless.

Define use? We train with them. Our rifles still have mounts for them. The last bayonet charge I know of was in the assault on Mt. Stanely in the Falklands.

They are a very good training tool (you have to suppress a lot of perfectly rational defensive behaviors to use them, which is handy when someone is trying to kill you, up close and personal. It’s sort of calming to have learned what can happen, so you can deal with what you want to prevent from actually happening), but as a weapon of common resort?

Think back of the racial inequities of the ’50s and ’60s and ’70s and even ’80s–I am old enough to remember much of it,

Even giving him some benefit of doubt (I’m old enough to remember the ’70s. I have a sense of the ’60s, and had friends who were old enough to remember the ’50s), if he’s not in his later ’60s he can’t say he remembers, “much” of them.

He did not just claim that men, all men, as a fact of being men, have flashbacks to the trenches of WWI. Right?

Well, I don’t know about all men. I have flashbacks to the Seven Years’s War, for some reason. My masculine programming must be awry. I guess any war for which I wasn’t alive and didn’t serve is fair game, right?

Here we are, in the 21st century and a new level of oppression, discrimination, and downright hatred has reared its very ugly head. It’s not new and in some circles, it doesn’t even exist let alone warrant a place in word processing spell checkers.

Well, I don’t know about all men. I have flashbacks to the Seven Years’s War, for some reason. My masculine programming must be awry. I guess any war for which I wasn’t alive and didn’t serve is fair game, right?

Ooooh I’m totally flashing back to fighting along Hadrian’s Wall then. Or maybe just go full tilt and have full memories of serving in the Battle of Five Armies.

Or maybe just go full tilt and have full memories of serving in the Battle of Five Armies.
Well, if Heartiste can use fictional Don Draper as an example, I’m all for fictional wars for flashbacks as well.

All my research is courtesy of the Armitage Library at Miskatonic University, Arkham, MA.

According to Wikipedia, the Order of the White Feather was founded by a MAN, Vice-Admiral Charles Cooper Penrose-Fitzgerald of the British Royal Navy. He recruited young ladies to hand out the feathers to any men in the streets who weren’t in uniform.The government had to issue a badge to civilians to identify them as doing war work, to spare them from this public harassment.

I have never heard of this in any other context but from MRAs whining about.

They harp on this and their other century-old gripe, the alleged “women and children first” protocol on the Titanic. At least their beef with the US draft is only 40 years out of date.

I should start going over some of my old D&D campaign notes and find which of those I can mine for trauma as well. I’m pretty sure I punched Cthulhu once at some point, he then promptly ate my soul but that should definitely be worth a few posts of self absorbed Reddit whining.

This is true. Blaming wars/drafts/the subjugation of working class men on women is a bit like blaming female objectification on Hooters waitresses. Ignoring that 99% of the problems are caused by wealthy men, and instead blaming the people who’s objectified bodies are used as pawns for those wealthy men is the MRM’s MO.

I haven’t even gotten to the comments yet. Heck, I can’t even get through the quotes in the post because of this

actually misanderist (i use that term hesitantly

misandarists

He should use the term hesitantly, because even if you set aside the fact that it refers to a highly questionable idea, he can’t manage to spell the word correctly (‘misandrist’ is the proper usage according to my understanding) or EVEN SPELL IT CONSISTENTLY! I mean, okay, use your made up ‘gotcha’ word, sure, and complain that spellcheck doesn’t recognize it, but then AT LEAST spell it the same way every time you use it!

I notice when people talk about women being killed today, literally as we speak, that’s just some kind of whiny victim mentality. Just an observation.
If ‘misandry’ ever ceases to get the red squiggly line treatment we’ll know something has gone very wrong somewhere.
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before but there’s thread on the ‘Parks and Recreations’ IMDB message board titled ‘Is the pro feminist, anti-male tone of this comedy too much sometimes?’
There is no escape.

Well, my sister has a lot of vivid dreams about battling aliens, so take heart, men! In the future women will handle the tough stuff by cruising around in space fighting monsters/enemies. You can stay home handing out feathers and growing victory gardens or whatever.

There has never been a possibility of someone handing him a white feather for not enlisting in WW1 either.

Well, you know, the fact that some women somewhere at some time in history did some things that were mean/rude/cruel to the men around them means that feminism is totes evil and horrible and women are just rotten to the core, so a 100 year old anecdote that has absolutely no relevance to today’s conditions is completely relevant and a super-awesome platform on which to base memes to harass women with Important Activism.

Of course, anything that isn’t happening to a woman *right now* (and maybe not even then), is irrelevant to the cause of equality and women should stop talking about it, stop dredging up “ancient history” and just get over it. Because feminism has totally won, don’t you know, and if you REALLY cared about women, you’d focus your attention on *those* women *over there* who have it totally way worse than you do!!!

This post and its commentary has had me thinking about a lot of things today. People have brought up that you’d think the MRAs would be supporters of women in the military if this is how they feel, or that they’d be more supportive of actual men who didn’t want to fight, or veterans. I’m thinking there’s a paradox at play here. I don’t think these guys actually want men to stop being the ones who sacrifice and die in war. This “noble” sacrifice isn’t the problem for them. The problem, I think, is that we keep refusing to give them the proper adoration and thanks for this sacrifice (which, of course, they’re just doing for women). By lack of proper adoration, I mean, we keep suggesting that women’s bodies may be more than their rightful reward for being men, who you know, even though they aren’t soldiers themselves, are kind of like the people who have historically been soldiers, because they have penises too.

I keep bringing up the whole sacrifice thing, because this part of El Rellok’s statement keeps coming back to bother me:

That is what sacrifice means to men; agony, suffering, death.

My first thought was, “Well, what in the world do you think sacrifice means to women?” But the more I think about it, the more I think that “sacrifice” has historically not meant quite the same thing for men and women. At least, in the myth and stories our culture is founded on, men sacrifice, but women are sacrificed. Which is why I think we end up with ideas like daintydougal pointed out:

I notice when people talk about women being killed today, literally as we speak, that’s just some kind of whiny victim mentality. Just an observation.

I think this would make perfect sense to these assholes, because (to them) women really are only victims of suffering and sacrifice, but men, you know, choose nobly to do it for others. They only become victims when we aren’t properly grateful and servile to them because they did whatever it was we didn’t ask or necessarily want them to do in the first place.

Sorry for the unfunny. I just haven’t been able to stop thinking about this one.

For people who complain about victim complexes, MRAs sure like to keep that martyrdom crown tight.

@Julie

What am I supposed to do with an image of a bloody feather? Feel bad about being a feminist?

Of course! You see, reactionary asshats constantly get this notion that social justice is about guilt. The MRM is a cargo cult mock-up of a real social justice movement composed mainly of reactionary asshats. Make the math.

Also I don’t think ‘sacrifice’ actually does mean any of those things to most of the mrm. I’d imagine sacrifice to them means occasionally having to act like a grown up. What does this armchair warrior know of ‘agony, suffering and death’?

We Hunted the Mammoth tracks and mocks the white male rage underlying the rise of Trump and Trumpism. This blog is NOT a safe space; given the subject matter -- misogyny and hate -- there's really no way it could be.